


little sicks

by violethoure666



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adjusting to Disability, And Very Sick, Angst with a Happy Ending, BDSM, Bruising/Marking Kink, But Rey is Sad about being Sick, But with Sex Right Away, Choking, Chronically Ill Rey, Dealing with illness, Dirty af but with RESPECT okay, Emotional Slow Burn, F/M, Fuck Buddies Gone Awry, General Trauma Responses, Gotta Blow Up To Grow Up, Kinky Sex Continues, Making good on the promise of Daddy Kink, Miscommunication, Misunderstanding, Modern AU, Pining, Possibly light daddy kink in the future, Re-Negotiated Kink, Rey's Tastes Change As Her Body Does, Rough Sex, Size Kink, Tender and Filthy, Watch me psychoanalyze desire while writing smut, Weed Gets Smoked, a lot of dirty talk, also hi it's me!, internalized ableism, light impact play (slapping), pain play, panick attacks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-13 14:00:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29279598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violethoure666/pseuds/violethoure666
Summary: Rey and Ben have a good thing going. They meet up once a week to have filthy, casual sex.Everything is totally fine, until Rey gets sick.As Rey's life falls apart, Ben's role in it begins to change; as her control over her situation slips away, her desire for the kind of rough, painful sex that she and Ben bonded over slips away with it. Without that, does she have anything left to offer?
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 176
Kudos: 378





	1. first

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys. i've decided to keep this on anon for the time being. i may do an author reveal when i'm done, but tbh i am loving the freedom that comes with this anonymity! this fic is more than halfway finished already, and I will probably be posting a chapter every other day this week (more or less) so feel free to wait until it's done if you dont wanna read along. if you like what im doing please lmk in the comments!

Rey Johnson has been working for Niima Insurance Agency for a year. It’s true that she never saw herself in insurance, _specifically_ , but she likes to think that her job manages to live on the creative outskirts of an otherwise rather soulless profession. Her official title is _insurance photographer_ , but when people ask her, she leaves out the _insurance_ part. 

In reality, she takes pictures of accidents. 

It’s a lot of burned out buildings, crashed cars, the occasional derailed train and lots of flooded crops, flooded basements-- flooded bathrooms. It’s a strange and intimate look at people’s worst moments, and Rey secretly _loves_ that. She’s always been the kind of person who cranes her neck to look in people’s windows at night, desperate for snapshots of happy families or couples fucking or even empty rooms. She loves little glimpses into any life that isn’t her own and well, this job is just about as voyeuristic as gets. 

New York City provides a vast number of accidents. When you spend all day looking at them, they get harder to ignore. Before she started her job, she sort of thought of the city as a living, breathing organism. She was aware that it was pulsing with blood and splintering bone underneath all of that metal and brick and flesh, but she didn’t have to see all of it firsthand. Now, she sometimes feels like a medical student, eyes freshly opened to all the ways a body can decay and go wrong-- only this particular body was massive, holding nine million people rather than nine trillion cells. 

Today, she’s way uptown in the Bronx, taking photos of a burned-out kitchen, listening to an old woman cry in Spanish behind her. 

“She wants to know when they can fix the wall.” The voice belongs to someone younger than Rey, and she turns to see a thin girl, looking up at her with wide brown eyes.

“I don’t know,” Rey says sadly. “These pictures will help us know how to help you, though, and we can figure out what went wrong, and how to fix it.” It’s a useless platitude and they both know it.

“But tonight-- it’s going to be cold.”

It already _is_ cold. It’s late November and the wall is burnt out badly enough that all heat escapes through the holes. They shouldn’t even be here, with the smoke damage and the draft and the lack of security, but Rey knows they either have nowhere else to go, or too much to risk leaving behind. There isn’t anything she can do except take pictures. This isn’t even the only scene she has to go to today, and already she has a headache rivaling her worst. She does what she can as quickly as she can and leaves before the sound of sobbing can get to her too badly. 

It’s freezing outside when Rey takes out a bottle of ibuprofen and downs four of them with the last of her tepid coffee, hoping that caffeine and painkillers can ease her headache. It works a little bit, giving her enough energy to push through the next two scenes before trudging back to her office to upload everything onto her work computer. 

To be honest, she doesn’t _have_ to go back to the office, but it’s Thursday, and Thursday is the day that Ben Solo waits for her in the lobby after work. The day they silently take the train back to her apartment. The day where he fucks her brains out for several hours before leaving without a fuss. It’s a really, really good system, and headache be damned-- Rey is not passing up an opportunity to get railed by Ben Solo. 

He’s waiting for her without fail at the end of the day. He’s got a long, wool peacoat on that’s the exact same shade of fathomless black as his jeans, and his boots, and his hair. Ben manages to make business casual look scary formal in a way that Rey does not understand. Today, she’s in heavy jeans, bright yellow wool socks, two layered long sleeve t shirts, a short sleeve t shirt, a wool sweater and a puffy green coat. Any sort of dress code seems laughable when the temperature is single digits and you have to be outside. 

Ben, obviously, does not have to spend any time outside, which is maybe why he doesn’t even bother to pull out his gloves as they make their way across the busy street. Probably buried in one of those deep pockets. They rush underground and manage to get onto the M train before the doors close. It’s crowded, but no more so than usual, and there’s a seat available in between two bundled up bodies. Rey sinks down into it, and Ben comes to stand in front of her. He’s huge, made even bigger by layers and this angle, towering over Rey. Her eyes are level with his hips, but she drags them upwards. 

She likes Ben because he doesn’t ask much of her. He doesn’t pry into her life, he is consistently available without being creepy about it, and he looks-- well he _looks like that._

Rey spent the first eight months working for Niima Agency actively _not_ looking at Ben, so being able to look now is nice. It warms her in a different way to see his massive hand grip the subway pole, and imagine it’s her wrist, her leg, her neck. She swallows thickly as the train pulls into the station. 

They’re quiet as they take the stairs all the way up to the fourth floor. Once inside, whoever she had been outside melts away. This is the thing she likes most about Ben, if she’s being honest. The way he punishes her. The way he hurts her so, so sweetly. When it’s just them, like this, she doesn’t have to be anyone at all-- she can melt away and let Ben take over, use her, _fuck_ her. 

And he does. 

His hands leave bruises on her hips from how hard he grips her. His cock pushes into her from behind _so_ roughly, without prepping her at all because he _knows_ how wet she is, how much she’s been dying for it. The way his breath stutters when he bottoms out sends chills down her spine, he holds himself still for just a moment before he’s slamming into her, pulling her by her hair, pressing his fingers gently-- so gently-- against her throat. 

“That’s it,” he tells her as she gurgles a bit from the angle, “so pretty like this.”

She feels her cunt pulse and clench against him as he talks, and when his fingers tighten against her windpipe she feels her entire body coil up, instantly on edge. 

His words get filthier the more he fucks her, more depraved. He calls her his little fuck toy, tells her that this is all she’s good for, a perfect little cum dumpster-- and she creams herself hard. His hands release from her throat and move between her legs as she finishes, and it sends her over the edge again. She hears herself make some depraved, desperate sound and then feels Ben hold still, grunting loudly as he empties inside of her. 

He holds her after, he always does, in a careful and sweet way. He gets her water, a sweater, her weed so she can roll them a joint-- something his massive fingers have never been good at-- and then he kisses her on the forehead and leaves around midnight. 

Rey, nicely fucked, stoned, and warm, drifts off to sleep. It really is a perfect system. 

The idea of dating Ben has crossed her mind, and then promptly been _crossed off_ for a handful of reasons. The first of which is that if he wanted to date her, he probably would have asked-- or at least tried to stay over, or something. Right? Sure, she hasn’t asked him to, but that’s because she’s not going to be the one to ruin a good thing. The guy who chokes you and makes you gag on his dick after work once a week is not the guy you dream of marrying, and that’s fine, that’s fair! She doesn’t have much in common with straight laced, insurance agent extraordinaire Ben Solo anyway, besides a penchant for rough and filthy sex. Why go around messing up a good sex thing with stuff like feelings, or daydreams. No thanks. 

In reality, Rey doesn’t have time for dating at all. It seems like every week; work is taking more and more out of her. It used to be that she had _some_ social life, drinks with friends on the weekend or the occasional girls night out with Rose and her girlfriend Kay. Lately, all Rey seems to have energy for is work and sleep. Even on the days when she sleeps for twelve, thirteen hours a night, she’ll wake up feeling exhausted, shaky, and weak. She’d given up sugar, and gluten, and then brought them back when it seemed to make no difference. She has a good sleep schedule, she limits her caffeine to just the morning, she tries to stay active during the week. None of it seems to matter, the more she tries to stay on top of it, the more she seems to slip. 

“Rey, can I see you in my office please?” 

Rey looks up to see Poe Dameron standing in the doorway to her shared office space, looking at her expectantly.

“Oh! Sure.” Rey honestly has no idea what this is about, but she has the sneaking suspicion that she is in trouble. Mr. Dameron takes her to his office, and then he shuts the door. Rey sits down across from him, feeling wearier by the minute.

“We need to talk about your performance,” he says. It’s not what she was expecting to hear, but she tries not to look taken aback. 

“My-- my performance?”

“Is everything okay? It seems like you’re not focused lately. Amilynn said you were on your phone for all of the staff meeting on Friday, and it looks like you’re-- a full week behind on submitting claims from two zip codes.”

She is? Rey racks her brain, trying to remember if she even _knew_ about these deadlines. Then, yes-- she thinks maybe she does remember an email urging her to close the account-- she blinks. 

“I am so sorry, Mr. Dameron. I don’t know what’s gotten into me, just have a lot on my plate right now in my personal life too, family problems.”

It’s a straight up lie. Rey has no family to speak of, which, if she’s being honest, is sort of its own set of problems. Right now, however, she’s just trying to buy time and make any excuse she can.

“I understand, and if you need us to lessen your caseload, we can work on that, just please-- try to be aware of the people who are counting on you, alright?”

“Absolutely,” Rey says with a smile. She feels like a wad of shit, stuck to the bottom of a shoe. How did she miss these assignments? And being chewed out for being on her phone was so juvenile. She didn’t even notice she was doing it. It was just that sometimes meetings felt physically painful to her, and without meaning to she would sort of-- distract herself any way she could. Being called out on it was embarrassing, and left her feeling like a failure as she made her way back to her desk.

The shame sits in her belly all day, as she waits for the clock to run out. She knows that she should double down on her work, but instead she texts Ben and asks if he can come over, even though it’s a Monday, and not a Thursday. He agrees without comment.

That night, while he fucks her, she asks him to slap her—to call her a worthless piece of shit. He does it without question—because she asked, because he doesn’t need to second guess her… because it makes him even harder when he does.

After, he peppers kisses down her face and tells her _thank_ _you_ , as if it was really him who’d asked for this, and not her. He even waits until she’s sleeping to leave, which makes her wonder if she really did push it too far.

She reasons with herself that if you can’t ask your fuck buddy to rough you up—then who can you ask?

Rey’s headaches get worse. A week after she’s first called into Poe’s office, it’s a constant companion. Two weeks later and she feels like she’s fighting through immeasurable fog to get anything done. Her legs feel heavy. Her joints ache. When she has to stop halfway through her day to rest in a café, she decides to make a doctor’s appointment.

They do blood work, they do scans, they make her pee in a cup and prick her finger. Everything comes back normal.

“It’s probably just stress,” her doctor says kindly, and he urges her to _get some sleep._

But _sleep_ is all Rey does, anymore, and if it really were just stress well—she isn’t exactly a stranger to stress. Rey grew up in foster care, on and off the streets, fighting for herself, for food, for her education. Stress is an old friend. There’s a reason she’s drawn to the chaos of accident scenes, the absolute worst of the worst. Once you know how close disaster is, you can’t stop looking for it everywhere. Historically, it’s been a way to calm her down.

Now, she doesn’t have energy for work like she used to, and so partly as a punishment, partly as a reality check—she stops seeing Ben too.

The truth is she has almost no sex drive. The small pings of desire she’s been running off of for the last few weeks have been for kink, for some last ditch effort to feel connected to herself like she used to and, sure enough, even those little flames dry up as her pain level slowly notches upward day after day. The idea of being in pain for pleasure seems tainted by the amount of pain she’s in almost all the time now.

Three months after her first call into Poe’s office and she’s had two more to reckon with. She’s been back to her doctor, and then to a specialist, but so far everything just looks… _normal_ . She’s convinced that if she just had _any_ concrete proof that something was wrong that she would be able to own up to how awful she feels. But the insistence from everyone else that _nothing is really wrong_ is making her feel like she’s losing her mind.

She’s walking through Flatbush in Brooklyn, it’s mid-February and freezing cold, the ground underneath her feet is icy in patches where people were too lazy or too old or too far away to salt. Her legs feel like they’re full of needles, every step is painful and makes her heartrate spike. She takes pictures. She hears someone talking at her and she nods, pretending to jot things down on her clipboard, the scratch her pen so—so loud.

She stumbles back out into the cold air and has to walk, and walk, and walk before she finally makes it to the bus stop that will bring her back to the train that will bring her back into the city to clock out.

When she finally makes it onto the bus, she collapses in a heap at the back, pulling her scarf up over her face. She can barely keep her eyes open, her legs feel like they’re on fire and she’s at least twenty five minutes away from her stop. She lets her eyes fall shut as she tips her head back, and before she can think—she’s asleep.

Rey jolts awake with panic to the harsh fluorescent overhead lights on the bus. There’s a man in filthy clothing who is staring at her, one hand disappearing into his rags. It takes her a minute to realize she’s still on the bus, and that it’s dark out—how can it be dark out? Horrified, she feels for her bag. It’s still tucked between her back and the seat, thank god. She pulls it around and fishes out her phone. She has nine missed calls and six texts, all from work.

Slowly the realization dawns on her that she just—fell asleep in the middle of the workday. If all she gets is fired over this, she’ll be lucky. She could have been robbed, or drugged—or. God where the fuck is she? She pulls the tab at the top of the bus and stands on shaky legs. The bus pulls over on some sludge filled street. She doesn’t recognize anything. She worms her way across the street and into a bodega where she pulls her phone out again and pulls up her maps. She’s in Brooklyn, the bus must have looped around a few times. It’s after 8:00pm, there’s no reason to even try to go to back to the office.

She texts Poe first, since he’s the one who called her the most.

_Sorry, I had a medical emergency. I’m okay now._

She thinks maybe that will be the end of it, but when the phone rings a moment later she steels herself. She walks out into the cold, dark night as she answers.

The conversation goes something like this: Poe asks if she has a doctor’s note for said medical emergency. She does not. Poe asks if she’s been using drugs. She tells him she has not. She debates telling him what happened, but she isn’t sure it won’t make things worse. Poe tells her he thinks it’s best if she can come in tomorrow to clear out her desk. She calmly and quietly agrees. The she hangs up the phone and screams into the empty, frozen night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments mean A LOT to me! if you like this story please let me know :3


	2. second

Something is very wrong with Rey Johnson.

The tests would beg to differ, but she _knows_ deep down in her bones that something is very, very wrong.

The dizziness seems to come in waves, and at first, there isn’t anything to do but push through it. Rey doesn’t have the luxury of not working, and so she starts picking up any kind of gig work she can. 

New York City is always busy. There are always parties to cater or houses to clean, that’s what she’s always told herself. She just never really counted on the fact that _she_ might not be able to do these things.

The chemicals she uses to clean houses start to give her rashes, blistering marks up and down her arms, across her chest. After two weeks of that, she gives it up, deciding that even if catering is harder, it comes with a lot less blisters.

That plan goes okay for another two weeks—until she actually faints on the job this time. 

She comes to in the hospital, alone, with a text message from her boss that includes a video of her passing out and spilling a plate of expensive caviar all over a woman in shimmering gold.

Mortified, Rey allows herself to cry silently while the IV (just fluids, the doctor says,) is removed. She can’t afford to uber home since she didn’t get paid, so on weak and shaking legs she sets off into the cold to catch the bus back home.

She sits near the front now, and she has been hyper-alert since her _incident_. She keeps her eyes open and pinches the skin on her hand to keep herself focused. She feels unusually weak, and unusually alone.

She hasn’t texted Ben since she quit. She figures that their arrangement ended along with the convivence of her employment, and honestly she might have—if not for the fact that she has pretty much no sex drive. Her relationship with Ben Solo started and ended with her ability to throw that ass back with a vengeance, and without that—well what exactly would they do? Talk? She laughs softly to herself, pulling the cord on the bus when she sees the bodega near her train stop.

She’s still thinking about Ben when she makes her way down the slippery steps and into the dark, underground chamber. It’s warmer down here, and damp, earthy. The smell of piss and trash is warmed by the trapped heat, it makes her a little nauseous. She’s thinking about Ben so clearly that she actually thinks she sees him. She blinks, eyes sliding in and out of focus before settling again on the massive, wool clad shape.

She stops walking, looking up at him. Maybe that IV had something besides fluids in it, after all. But then he’s looking back at her, and his eyes light up with recognition. 

Standing there in the clothes she wore to catering, slacks and her button up under her puffy green coat, she reassures herself that she looks as if she could easily be coming from work, and not from the hospital.

“Hi,” she says. Unlike it is at rush hour, the station now is quiet, only a few people milling about in silence. Rey’s voice echoes off the stone and bounces back, tinny and thin.

“Hi,” Ben says. His eyes move from hers down her body, taking in her soggy work shoes. “Long night?”

“You have no idea,” she says, and the rush of warmth she feels takes her by surprise. She hasn’t really had many people to talk to in the last month, working only odd gigs and sleeping away the rest of her hours. Ben’s eyes crinkle softly around the edges as he smiles down at her.

He opens his mouth to speak, but at that moment the train barrels into the station, and so they both move to get on. His hand presses gently against the small of her back as they do, and she shivers.

“How have you been?” Ben asks as they sit down. The car is nearly empty, but he sits right next to her. She can smell him, crisp and spicy.

“Pretty good,” she lies. “Been doing all kinds of stuff, freelance work mostly. It’s a nice change of pace to set my own schedule.” She has all of these talking points memorized now. Ben nods along. “Tonight was catering, again.”

“Sounds tiring,” Ben says.

“Oh buddy, you don’t know the half of it,” Rey laughs gently. “What about you, where are you headed?”

“Just had to drop some stuff off at my dad’s, heading home now—I mean, unless—unless you wanna hang out?”

_Hang out._ It’s code for _get fucked to within an inch of your life for a few hours._

Rey wants nothing more than to curl up on her couch and cry about what happened tonight, but even so she is almost tempted. It might be worth it to put up with whatever else Ben needs to get off to get someone to just—hold her. Thinking about it actually makes her eyes sting—it’s so close, and yet totally out of reach.

“I had like—the longest night, for real,” she says, and Ben smiles at her, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes like before.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, casual and calm.

Rey wants to explain, but she can’t bring herself to do it. Ben Solo is not her boyfriend, not even really her friend, he’s her fuck buddy—and if she can’t fuck—then there really isn’t anything to it.

Self-consciously, she brings a hand up to brush the hair out of her face. Ben’s eyes track her movement, and then his eyes narrow, brow furrowing as his eyes lock onto her wrist.

Rey looks down and notices the hospital bracelet too late. Stupidly, she feels her eyes sting. She’s really, really tired, and rightfully sad about _literally fainting_ at work, and then having to _see the video_ also—and she hates hospitals, and her feet are so cold, and it would be very nice to be fucked, or held, or _anything_ but she doesn’t have it in her to do _anything—anything_ at all.

She would _so_ prefer to have this breakdown in private, but Ben’s fingers are on her wrist, turning the band so he can clearly see the date, the time, her name in bold letters.

She can’t meet his eyes, she looks down at her hand until she notices its trembling, and then she tries to pull it away. Ben’s hand swallows hers, holding it still. She looks up at him, and he looks confused, and concerned, and very, very close. 

“What happened, Rey?” he asks her gently.

“Nothing, I got-- I just got dizzy at work, and they made me go get checked out. That’s all.”

“How do you feel now?”

How does she feel now? Like a live wire with his fingers on her skin, unmoored, untethered, desperate not to cry.

“Fine,” she lies.

“You don’t look fine,” his other hand comes up to her face, and she melts against it without second thought. “Let me come over, we don’t have to fuck around—just let me come make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m _not_ gonna fuck you.”

Maybe the words come out harsher than she meant them, but she _can’t_ —she doesn’t want him to think _that’s_ what this is. Even the idea of being touched right now makes her nauseous, and he needs to know that. He’s never come over for anything that wasn’t fucking her.

“I know,” he says, and his real smile creeps back, just enough to make his eyes crinkle again.

"Okay then. You can come over.”

_Rey has been working with Ben for nearly eight months when she sees him on Tinder. She does a double take. Takes a screenshot. Stares at it._

**_Ben Solo, 36_ **

****

**_INTO: BDSM, rough sex, pain play._ **

**_Looking for a toy to use. No relationships._ **

**_Mutual respect is a must,_ **

**_Well negotiated kink is the only kind of kink._ **

**_Swipe right if you’re a filthy slut desperate to learn her place._ **

**_Swipe left if you’re literally anyone else._ **

_It’s not that this version of Ben Solo is_ totally _incongruous with the Ben Solo she knows—the reality is she doesn’t know Ben Solo at all. But Ben—buttoned-up-Ben. He is always so uptight, so quiet, so professional. It is so clear he comes from money, with his expensive shoes and coat and skin. He has the look of someone who has always been well fed, which makes Rey self-conscious in a way she can’t put words to._

_Quiet, stoic, insurance agent Ben Solo is looking for a little fucktoy to use... Rey is instantly on fire. She swipes right before she has time to even think about it._

_It’s already a match._

_She allows herself a minute to freak out internally before messaging Ben._

_Rey: Well hey._

_Ben: Hi, I was hoping you’d match with me. I spent the last three days wondering if you’d seen my profile and freaked out._

_Rey: Oh no, trust me I am_ just _now seeing it._

_Ben: And no freak out?_

_Rey: Welllll_

_Ben: ?_

_Rey: Certainly no BAD freakout. But I think you and I could have uhhh... have some fun, if you’re into it. Casual fun, of course._

_Ben: Yeah, we’d have to be careful with work stuff, and keep it on the downlow, but if you’re game then I am._

_Rey: I am. I definitely am._

_Ben: Okay yeah, great. What about tomorrow, after work?_

_Rey: Is it okay that it’s a weekday?_

_Ben: Yeah that’s better for me actually, I am always free on Thursdays._

_Rey: Perfect. Tomorrow then._

_Ben: Can’t wait._

Rey is feeling weaker than normal when the train finally pulls up at her station. Ben’s hand is on the small of her back again as they get off the train, and it doesn’t leave her. She feels his hand pressing against her coat, and when they reach the bottom of the stairs, he touches her arm, her shoulder, her wrist.

“Do you want me to get us a car?”

“It’s a ten-minute walk,” Rey says, which isn’t exactly a _no_.

Ben pulls his phone out, pressing buttons. Within a minute, a sleek black car is pulling up to the curb. Ben’s hands don’t leave her as they get into the back seat, and she can’t help slumping against his body as the car pulls out. It’s literally a three-minute drive, but her legs are shaking worse than even when she gets out of the car. She is torn between an intense desire to hide any physical weakness, and an intense emotional desire to not be alone—to be supported in some way.

He stands behind her on the stairs in a way that she knows is a little bracing, as if he half expects her to faint at any moment. In his defense, it is a _lot_ of stairs. When she reaches the top she rushes into the bathroom to hide the fact that she’s shaking. She takes off her shoes, and her freezing socks, and then her pants, and her button up. She washes her hands, scrubbing the hospital off of herself as best she can. She doesn’t even have the energy to shower, she’s not sure she can stand that long.

She walks out into the living room in her underwear and a tank top. Her apartment is a studio, so it’s not like she has anywhere she can hide. She feels Ben’s eyes on her, but when she looks up he’s looking at his phone. He has his coat off, and he’s not in work clothes—something new. He’s in the same dark jeans he always wears, but with his boots off she can see his socks are red, and soft looking. He’s in a sage green Henley, looking like some kind of dark and sexy Christmas gift.

“You can use the controller to put something on,” she says, fishing through her laundry pile for a pair of sweatpants and her favorite well-worn thermal.

Ben presses buttons on the Switch as Rey comes over to the couch. She is too tired and too sad to fight with her desires right now, and she curls up against Ben without hesitation, putting her head on his thick, denim clad thigh. Just being around someone else is making the pain melt away. She had planned to come home and sob, but she feels perfectly content putting that particular breakdown off for now.

Ben’s hand comes down to gently play with her hair, and Rey makes herself fight her desire to fall asleep for longer than she normally would, desperate to keep the contact for as long as she can.

When she wakes up, Ben is gone. She’s still on the couch, but there’s a blanket over her, and there’s a huge bottle of water and two big cookies on the table. She has no idea where any of it came from, but when she checks her fridge she finds untouched takeout—curry and rice and spring rolls.

For whatever reason, this is the thing that sets her off. Once she starts crying, she can’t stop. This little bit of kindness feels so undeserved. She wonders if he only did it because he misses fucking her. Then she wonders why the hell he would have any other reason to care. He misses fucking her—and to be honest, she misses fucking him too.

She thinks about maybe just fucking him anyway, but when she thinks about his hands on her, digging into her skin, she doesn’t feel excited the way she usually does, she feels a little sick.

Their connection—their _thing_ —it works because they have a common interest. If you take that away—there really isn’t anything worth pursuing. She’s pretty sure that the filthiest, roughest dude she’s every fucked probably won’t be okay with hanging up his kinks to take care of his sick fuck buddy. He doesn’t even know how bad it is, he has no idea, and it’s best that it stays that way.

Rey has nothing to offer Ben anymore, all she would be able to do is take without giving, and she’s really not that shitty, despite what her foster father always said.

When he texts her the next day, “You free on Thursday?” she doesn’t answer.

When she tells herself that honestly, it’s for the best, she almost believes it.

_Almost_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi thank you all so much for the love! your comments mean so much to me 🥺 more coming tomorrow ❤️


	3. third

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha yeah okay so the chapter count went up... who could have seen this coming! Me. I did. I saw it coming. 
> 
> also tw: PANIC ATTACK! in this chapter so heads up. Check the end notes for more details.

Rey has enough money to keep her phone on, her lights on, her heat on—or to pay her rent. She can’t really justify doing both. A month into her new career as a _freelance gigger_ she’s starting to realize that living off of a third of her old salary is not exactly _working._

She still has some savings, she’s not going to be out on her ass tomorrow, but she also can’t afford to spend money the way she is. She stocks her cabinets with ramen and her freezer with frozen vegetables. She buys peanut butter and white bread, knowing first hand how filling it can be when you stretch it. She doesn’t skimp on the fancy coffee she likes, because she still wants a reason to get up in the morning. She carefully sorts her life into _essential_ vs _nonessential._ It’s not the first time, and she’s pretty sure that it won’t be the last.

A week into ignoring Ben’s (one) text, Rey decides she should reach out to someone who is actually her friend, and maybe fill her in on a few things.

Rose Tico has been one of Rey’s closest friends for more than five years. They had been roommates for two of those years, but that was before Rose met Kay, and before they got pregnant with little Jamie, and before she never saw either of them ever again, pretty much. But Rey makes it clear enough in her text message that she has Things To Talk About, and two days later she’s sitting face to face with Rose, curled up on her couch. Rey has a joint in her hand, but Rose has waved her off.

“So they don’t know what’s wrong?” Rose asks, her sweet face pulled into a mask of concern.

“Nope, they say _nothing is wrong, get some sleep,_ as if fainting in the middle of a work day or not being able to keep my eyes open on the bus is just from tossing and turning. Like please, I have _lived_ on no sleep. I could run a marathon on no sleep. You know that.”

“I do,” Rose agrees. She still looks concerned. “What’s the next step?”

“They keep scheduling me in for more and more tests. They said something about _ruling out brain tumors_ so I think that’s next.”

“Jesus Christ, Rey, that’s really scary.

Rey takes a long, steady pull on her joint. It is really scary. It’s like, _super_ fuckng scary and she has had to be totally freaked out about it all on her own for like, days and days. She gets to be the stoic one now, and it feels kind of good to deliver such terrifying prospects in a would-be-casual voice, as if this is just the way it is, and Rey is so used to it.

She’s getting there—used to it.

“How do they test for brain tumors?”

“No idea,” Rey admits. Up until this year, her most invasive procedure had been a yearly PAP smear. She wasn’t sure how any of this was going to go, she was just sort of showing up where they told her to.

“Probably have to do an MRI,” Rose said.

Rey hummed in agreement, but she had no idea what that actually meant. A giant machine, she was pretty sure? If her distant memories of House MD stood the test of time.

Rey ends up telling Rose almost everything. She tells her about Ben, and how sad she’s been to call it off, but how she just can’t possibly entertain the idea of a fuck buddy right now. She talks about how dizzy she’s been, how it feels like she’s just finished running a race whenever she stand up, how she is constantly finding new rashes, new bruises, new cuts that just don’t seem to heal.

Rose holds her hands, and she listens so well, and when she leaves, she promises that she will be better about texting, and that she will be more available. She even urges Rey to put her as her emergency contact, in case anything goes wrong.

When she leaves, Rey feels better than she has in weeks.

Rey schedules her MRI. She googles MRI too. It stands for MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING and it turns out it’s a giant magnet that takes pictures of your brain. Of all the ways to potentially test for tumors, it seems like a pretty noninvasive procedure.

Remembering what Rose told her, she copies the other girl’s number from her phone and onto the little form stuck to the clipboard. Something about just that little act makes her feel less alone. She writes down the rest of her insurance information, checks off all the appropriate boxes, and takes a seat in the waiting room.

The chairs are the same color as her nipples, but leathery. It smells like antiseptic. Rey takes a deep breath in and waits. She’s too nervous to play on her phone. She wonders if they will know right away if something is wrong, like they do on hospital shows. Maybe some doctor is sitting up in the viewing booth, looking at a screen, waiting eagerly to asses her brain. But when she gets called into the back there’s just a technician, scrubbed up from head to toe. They instruct Rey to remove all of her jewelry and clothing, and to put on a gown and lay on the platform.

Rey does as she’s told, only thinking at the last minute to ask how long this is going to take.

“Should be done in about ninety minutes,” The technician tells her. Before this information can really sink in, they add, “Once you’re in the tube please stay absolutely still, any movement will delay us.”

To hammer this point in, they pull straps across Rey’s body, loose enough that she could slip them, but tight enough to remind her why she’s strapped down in the first place.

_Ninety minutes?_ The words bounce around her skull as the machine whirs to life and she slides backwards, into the mouth of the gaping, monstrous machine. s

Rey has never much considered claustrophobia, she used to spend a lot of time worming her way in and out of tight spaces, looking for things she could pawn, or a way into a building, or for a place to sleep. But this was nothing like that, this was like—like being trapped.

Just when she thinks it can’t get any worse, the machine turns on for real, roaring in her ears and twisting above and below and around her.

Eighty nine minutes. She can do this, right? She can do this. She tries to drown out the sound, to slip away—but all she can think about is this huge piece of machinery, and the sound in her ears, and how she can’t move—she can’t move.

Maybe if she had known what to expect, it would have gone differently. As it is, she feels her tentative hold on reality snap as she plunges into pure panic.

Rey begins to thrash. She manages to herself out of her bonds quickly, screaming and clawing at whatever she can reach. Within a minute, she’s being seized, dragged out from the machine, and before she can even catch her breath—there’s a needle in her arm.

The world swims, and then goes dark.

Rey comes to in a hospital bed, the slow, steady beeping of the machine next to her reassuring her that her vitals are normal, and that she is—somewhat regrettably—not dead.

She feels nauseous, probably from whatever sedative they loaded her up with. It takes her a minute to fully focus her eyes, and when she does, she realizes she’s alone. She waits like that for a few minutes, and then, thirsty, she searches for a call button. She finds one, and a minute later a nurse has shuffled into her room.

“Oh good, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

“Embaressed,” Rey says, trying to sit up.

“Not too fast there, you’ve had a nice little valium drip darling, don’t want to get dizzy.”

“I’m always dizzy,” Rey jokes. No one laughs. “Can I go home now?”

“Not quite yet I’m afraid,” The nurse says with a frown. “You’re on some strong medicine, best that someone comes to help you. We’ve been trying your emergency contact but no answer yet.” Rey’s eyes find the wall ahead of her. The clock reads half past five. She’s been here for hours, they must have been calling for hours. This becomes even more apparent when the nurse says, “Perhaps there’s someone else we can call?”

Rey’s heart sinks, because really there _isn’t_ anyone else she can call. No one at all, except—

“Yeah, yeah I can call—” she reaches for her phone, only to realize she doesn’t have it.

“Best to give me the number, love.” The way she says it makes it less of a suggestion and more of a command, even though her face is soft.

“It’s in my phone. Ben Solo.”

The nurse smiles again and turns to leave.

Rey lets her head drop down against the pillow. Is there really no one else to call? Not if Rose isn’t answering. Finn moved down south a year ago. She hasn’t talked to any of the girls from the home in years. There’s just Rey. That’s never been a problem before, it wasn’t something she felt ashamed of—rather she felt proud, strong, and independent. Now it just felt pathetic.

It’s a while before anyone comes back to check on her, but eventually someone brings her her bag, and her clothes, and her phone. She changes in silence, unlocking her phone to see a text from Ben.

_On my way._

The drugs they have her on must have her feeling weaker than normal, because she can’t bring herself to stand for more than minute or so. It’s much more comfortable to lay down, anyway. She curls into a ball and waits.

Half an hour later, Ben is there. He’s dressed casually, in basketball shorts and a hoodie. Was he working out? Did she pull him away from something? She’s about to ask, but then he’s crowding her, leaning down to touch her face. The docot makes him sign a waiver, and whispers something about _her condition_ and _be careful tonight._

“Are you okay?” Ben asks her when the doctor is finished talking to him. She winces as she nods, and it’s clear from the way his eyes harden that he knows she’s full of shit. “Come on, let me take you home, okay?” His hands move over her arms, her shoulders, into her hair.

She doesn’t argue, she wants nothing more than to get the fuck out of this place. Ben signs a piece of paper taking responsibility for the unusually wobbly Rey, and then he’s guiding her out of the too bright office and into the dusky evening. Rey steps away from Ben, turning to face the brick wall instead and she takes a few deep, heavy breaths of cold air. Ben waits for her to stop shaking, somehow knowing not to touch her just yet.

“Rey. Tell me the truth,” he asks her again, “Are you okay?”

His voice is rough and low, but so steady.

“No,” Rey spits the words out, still not looking at him. “And I _don’t_ want you with me right now, and I know that’s fucking _awful_ after I just made you come get me but they wouldn’t let me out—” her voice cracks, and she still refuses to turn around and face Ben. “I don’t have a lot of friends but Rose said she would—she told me to put _her_ number and she didn’t even—” Rey feels her eyes spill over, and chokes on her words. She has to swallow, and even so her voice sounds weird. “Please just let me have this breakdown alone, Ben, please.”

There’s no sound from behind her, but she knows that he hasn’t left. She waits, and waits. Nothing.

When she finally turns back to him, he’s coiled tight like some massive panther in sportswear, like it’s taking all of his willpower not to pounce, not to touch her like was before, hands mapping her muscles through her coat.

Rey wipes her nose with her sleeve, not caring if she leaves a trail of slime for the world to see. She wants to gross Ben out, she wants him to just—leave.

“Let me just get you home, like I said I would, okay? Let’s just—just _please_ let me get you back home, and if you want me to go, I’ll go, okay.”

Rey wants to argue, but all that comes out is a stupid sobbing sound as she stomps her foot and looks away, nodding stubbornly. Ben has his phone out before she can argue, and he’s punching in her address. She would never even think to uber home from this far away, it must cost fifty bucks, but for once she just swallows the complaint and gets into the car when it pulls up.

Ben doesn’t touch her, and thank god. She thinks if he laid a single finger on her, she might melt away into a puddle of tears. She feels completely insubstantial, barely connected to this world by a thread. They get to her apartment and she lets Ben shadow her on the steps, feeling the heat from his body as she climbs, and climbs, and climbs. It’s hard work, her heart is racing and her legs feel weak. At one point, he crowds behind her and she’s actually grateful for it, worried she would fall back without him there.

The reach the landing and she lets them in, letting the familiar smell of _home_ wash over her. Rey wants to push Ben out, but he has done _so_ much for her, she can’t quite bring herself to do it. Instead, she crawls into bed and turns her back to him.

Ben putters around, she can hear him doing dishes in the kitchen, and then she hears the tea kettle whistle. A few minutes later she feels the bed dip under his weight. She can smell mint and honey from next to her.

She rolls onto her side to face him, fully aware of how miserable and snotty she looks.

“I brought you tea and toast.”

“Why?”

“Because it will help.”

“No, Ben, I mean like-- _why._ Why are you being so nice to me, is this like—some pity thing? Or just trying to nurse me back to health so that I’ll fuck you again?”

As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she wants to take them back. She feels her cheeks burn. Ben, for his part, doesn’t react the way she expects.

He takes the cup from the nightstand and holds it out to Rey. She sits up slowly and takes the cup with a whispered _thanks._

Ben is quiet for another moment, then he speaks.

“When I was a kid, my mom got sick. Really sick, and she stayed like that, for a long time.”

Rey takes a sip of her tea, scared of where this is going.

“I watched her, you know, everything she did. I knew it was doubly hard for her, raising me, dealing with my dad running off, her work, her _life_ —she took it all in stride, and she was an amazing woman.” Ben looks from his hands up to Rey. “I never pitied _her_ , I was in awe of her—she was one of the strongest people I’ve ever known. Just like you are.”

Rey is too emotionally wrung out to hear this. She takes another sip of too hot tea, letting the burn distract her.

“I don’t pity you, Rey. Please, whatever you think this is—it’s not that.”

She’s too scared to ask _what_ it is, or if he just means that it’s the other thing—if he is somehow counting on nursing her back to health so he can fuck her again. It’s a really, _really_ nice idea, after all. In theory.

“You don’t have to go,” Rey says, her voice horse, “unless you want to—I mean, you _can_ go just, if you don’t want to go—I need sleep, I mean, I didn’t mean—”

Ben’s eyebrows raise up toward his hairline and his lips press together.

“You’re laughing at me,” Rey says.

Ben shakes his head, but he keeps his lips tightly pressed together as they creep into a smile.

“Shut up,” Rey says, but she’s smiling too now, hiding her face behind her cup. Ben takes the mug from her hands and touches her face. She lets herself melt into his touch again, breathing slow and steady. “I’m so fucking tired,” she says.

“Well, they did give you a ton of valium, so that tracks.”

“Mhm,” Rey yawns, and slides back into the blankets. “You’re staying?”

“Gotta do my due diligence,” Ben says, “Make sure you’re okay.”

Rey sighs her relief against Ben’s chest, as he slides gently next to her, letting her curl up against him. She can feel the soft skin of his legs, where his shorts don’t reach all the way down. He shivers and twitches a little when she drags her toes against him and it makes her smile, makes her think of the way his body stutters when he cums inside of her.

Her hands fist against his hoodie as she closes her eyes, chasing away images:

_Ben naked—but below her this time, not behind her. Ben kissing her mouth, not her neck. Ben fucking her slowly, with his hands first, or maybe his mouth—something she’s really enjoyed in the past, but might like if—if Ben was--_

_She can smell him, she can taste him, he’s all around her, inside of her, under her skin._

Rey wakes up in a cold sweat just as dawn is breaking. The bed is empty, as it always is, only this time Rey feels Ben’s absence like a pit in her stomach.

She pulls the blankets closer, trying to breathe in the last of his scent, and falls asleep again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for all the love! All of your comments have really inspired me to keep writing! Stay tuned for more soon! 
> 
> TW:PANIC/SPOILERS  
> During her MRI Rey has a panic attack. The actual panic moment is fairly short lived, because she's given a sedative. It all takes place in a medical facility during a procedure, and most of the chapter deals with the fallout/embarrassment/aftermath.


	4. fourth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so for some reason this cut off in the middle ?!? and i didn’t notice for like half an hour so sorry sorry it’s all there now lolllll

Rey decides it’s fine to text Ben, actually.

So far he has been nothing but kind and helpful and she’s worn down and weak enough at the moment to accept whatever help she might be able to get. The fact that it comes from Ben is a mix bag of wonderful and horrible.

It’s wonderful because he is,  _ genuinely _ , so helpful. He brings her groceries, he even gets her weed for her, which she thinks must be an absolutely hilarious interaction between her dealer and Button-Up-Ben. He does the dishes when she’s let them stack up, and takes her trash down four fucking flights of stairs, something she used to herself almost every day, and now happens twice, maybe three times a week.

It’s wonderful because Ben is wonderful, but that sort of makes it horrible. Rey knows that the key component of their relationship is still absent, and she knows that the tension between them, heavy, electric, and ever present, is a huge part of the draw. Ben is here because he wants to be here, because if he can help Rey feel better then he feels good about himself and also, just maybe, he will get to go back to fucking her.

Sex with Ben is—was—incredible. For someone who is always so reserved, coiled up with tension and clearly layered emotions all just sort of simmering under the surface. When he lets go of all that, it’s heady. Having his attention on her, being able to be the thing he  _ wants, _ the thing he  _ needs.  _ The memory of it still keeps her up at night, despite her best efforts to forget.

__

_ “Your little cunt,” Ben gasps against the back of her neck, “Was made just for my cock. Perfect little cocksleeve, if I could wear you out I would. I’d wear your pussy to work, I’d keep you flat against my desk all day while I took calls.” _

__

_ “P-people might see,” Rey says, feeling herself clench at her words. She grips the sheets tighter, presses her face down into the bed. _

__

_ “Yeah? Would they see my little slut spread out, being used? Poe always comes in unannounced, you know,” Ben’s hands get tighter as he mentions her boss’s name. “Always—fucking—interrupting my shit, I know he’d just walk in, freeze at the sight of you drooling on my desk.” _

__

_ “W-would he be jealous?” Rey asks, and Ben starts to fuck her faster. _

__

_ “Of course he would, look at you. He’d beg me for a turn with you, offer me money, a promotion.” _

__

_ “D-do you let him? I—I’ll do whatever you want, Ben, I’m  _ your _ toy—you—you can share me if you—” Rey chokes off, Ben’s hand is around her throat, he’s grunting in her ear, moving faster. _

__

_ “I don’t like to share my playthings,” he tells her, his voice as low as it ever is. “Good little fuck dolls know their place.” His fingers bite into her skin, she keens at the sensation, nodding him on. _

__

_ “Just yours,” Rey says, and she’s on the edge now, “you don’t have to share me—you don’t even have to clean me out, Ben, you can just set me aside until you’re ready again. I’ll be all soft and warm and w-wet—” Rey cries out as Ben presses down on her clit, pushing her over the edge as he cums inside of her, growling roughly in her ear, fingers still perfectly tight around her throat. _

__

Rey blinks back to reality as the tea kettle whistles. She does not need to be dwelling on  _ that _ right now. She knows that as soon as she feels even remotely capable of being touched—of being fucked—she will let Ben raw her. Let him do whatever he wants. Maybe she can keep him near her if she agrees to like, one fuck a month. She can probably swing that. It’s like cleaning houses. It’s hard work and pretty painful but she gets something good out of it, like money to buy food, or Ben’s help. This is just her new economy, and if she’s being honest—her only real choice right now.

Rey’s savings are getting dangerously low, and her lease is up in a few months. If she can’t keep paying her rent, she’s not sure she can keep her apartment.

Morbid curiosity pushes her to craigslist, looking up apartments in the city, and then right outside of the city, and then way the fuck far away outside of the city. The reality of her finances means that if she’s going to have enough to move, she has to move soon. Maybe she can at least get in somewhere she can afford a deposit on, and then if she has to squat well—she will squat. It wouldn’t be the first time. Albeit, the first time since she an adult and not a teenager on the run but, she knew how do it if she had to.

Spurred into panic, she switches over to the job tab, frantically browsing gig work. She takes a few cleaning jobs over the next two weeks, and once again looks into data entry, closed captioning, online surveys, phone sex, copy editing—she applies to everything. Then, exhausted, she naps.

It’s not that Rey has no sex drive at all, she still breaks out her vibrator every couple of nights, her thoughts turning increasingly soft and increasingly Ben-Centric as the days go on. It’s not that she doesn’t want to have sex, it’s that all of the things she used to like about sex now seem— less than ideal.

She used to like pushing her body beyond it’s limits, finding her breaking point, straddling the line between pain and pleasure. Now she pushes pain down constantly, and can’t imagine welcoming it the way she once did.

She used to like feeling disconnected from herself, like she’s finally able to let go and forget about Rey, and just be a  _ thing, _ a very useful thing, at that, but something insubstantial and pleasure bound and filthy.

Now, she feels disconnected from herself all the fucking time. She would give anything for just ten minutes with herself, her real self, who can wander around town with a camera in the freezing cold and climb four flights of stairs without blinking at the end of the day. The Rey who never missed a deadline and could run on four hours of sleep. Scrappy Rey, strong Rey—that’s who she used to need a break from, and it’s who she would give anything to be once again.

But she still thinks about getting fucked, she thinks about how warm and loose she would feel after if she just let Ben scoop her up and use her.

It’s very weird to not want something she so badly wants.

By the time Thursday rolls around, Rey debates telling Ben not to come over at all. She spent the day before cleaning an absolutely  _ filthy _ brownstone, and the skin on her arms is covered in raw, tender hives. Her back hurts, her mouth hurts, there’s shooting pains all over and she hasn’t been able to shower.

The only reason she doesn’t cancel is because she’s pretty much out of food, and she already sent Ben most of what she made yesterday, so she can’t even order in. She puts on a thin, long sleeve thermal to hide her arms, and puts her greasy hair back in a bun. Maybe if she looks less fuckable, she will feel less bad about not fucking. Sort of the way the only person you have to blame if you get bit by the brightly colored snake is yourself, it was clearly putting out POISON vibes while you weren’t paying attention. Same with Rey.

When Ben finally arrives he is still in his work clothes, looking far less frazzled than anyone coming off of a nine hour shift and a supermarket excursion has any right to look.

Rey helps him put everything away, and once the bags are empty, she hugs him.

She isn’t really a  _ hugger _ , usually, and she isn’t sure if she’s ever just  _ hugged _ Ben. It seems like Ben isn’t much of a hugger either, If the way he freezes up for a moment is any indication. But then his arms are around her, and his chin rests on the top of her head and she can hear his heartbeat, steady.

“You okay?” Ben asks, pulling back to look at her.

“Yeah, just thankful. You’ve really gone above and beyond for me the last couple weeks and I just—I wish I could do something, anything, to say thanks.”

Ben makes a non-committal noise, shrugging her off.

“If you really want to say thanks,” he tells her, “You’ll let me pick the movie tonight.”

Rey pretends to think about it, pulling a stink face as they move to her couch, but she lets him take the controller without fuss, settling next to him as he puts flips through movies. He’s signed her into all of his streaming services, which has vastly widened her options from  _ just _ the commercial ridden Hulu account that came with her phone.

Ben puts on a movie from the late nineties called Evolution, which has Mulder from X-files in it, so Rey can’t really complain. She lets herself be distracted by the movie, and the warm, calm presence that Ben brings. She doesn’t even notice she’s scratching.

Ben’s hand comes down to cover hers, and his eyes are narrowed. On screen, an alien slug is squirming under someone’s skin, but like, in a  _ funny _ way.

“What’s wrong?” He asks her.

“Nothing, just a little itchy.”

“Can I see.”

It would be ridiculous to say no, and she knows it, and he knows it, and so even her hesitation is telling. She stays silent, and Ben is the one to move, slowly drawing up the sleeve of her shirt.

Her arm is covered in raw, blistering hives.

“Oh,” he says softly, turning her arm. “Do you know what did this?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so it won’t happen again?”

“I didn’t say  _ that _ .”

Ben’s lips press together, his jaw moves, muscle under skin.

“What happened?” His voice is calm, but he has the same look he gets sometimes before he fucks her. Coiled up.

“It’s just—I’ve been doing some housecleaning stuff, and some of the products have started to, I don’t know, irritate me a little.”

“Irritate you a little?” Ben’s voice is strained, higher than it normally is. “Your skin is raw and bleeding, Rey. That’s not the same thing as a _ little irritated.” _

__

Rey can’t help shrinking back a little, she pulls her arm away. She doesn’t like feeling accused of things, of lying, or hiding things, or—or  _ whatever _ this is. She feels herself prickle as Ben pushes off the couch. She’s never seen him yell, but she feels weirdly like she’s going to be yelled at. Memories of Plutt flutter through her mind, snapshots. She feels frozen.

When Ben comes back, he has his backpack, and he’s fishing out a little tub of something. He sits next to her and takes her arm again, seemingly unaware of Rey’s flight, fight, or  _ freeze _ response.

“This will help,” he says gently, “It’s stuff I got for my dad, he’s diabetic and his legs are a mess. Here,” he takes some of the cool, gel-like salve and works it into her skin, starting with her hand. “Feel okay?”

She looks up into his eyes, feeling herself slowly return to the moment, brought back by the motion of his hand over hers, and the cool relief of the ointment on her skin. He works it up higher, into her wrist, the soft underside of her arm and she nods. 

“Take this off.” 

It’s not a command, but it might as well be, the way he says it, nodding down at her shirt. Rey pulls her thermal off, shivering in just her bra. She pulls her legs up under her as Ben takes her other arm, slowly working the salve across her skin once again. She looks down and tries not to feel humiliated. Her skin looks gross, scaly and raw. Ben doesn’t seem to mind, he’s gentle and thorough, making sure he covers her arm completely before also checking her back, and her chest, for hives as well. He presses a small, gentle kiss to her shoulder, and then says, “You can put your shirt back on, it’s cold.”

Swallowing thickly, Rey does.

“How did you get so good at this? Taking care of people, I mean. Was that all from—from your mom?”

Ben tilts his head in thought before he speaks. 

“She had Lupus, it wasn’t so bad when I was really little but it got worse. She would have good days, you know, but then also—bad days. Really bad days. My dad was always in and out, and out, and out.” There is an edge of something bitter in his voice, which Rey files away for later. “I had to a lot, not  _ had  _ to I mean—she did a lot of me, and I did what I could for her to—to try and—”

Ben sighs, shaking his head. Rey can tell he’s debating telling her something. She isn’t even sure if she wants to know, she isn’t always good at reacting appropriately to people’s trauma. She can’t really relate to middle class malaise in any way.

“When I was younger I was—not a very good kid.”

“Oh?” Rey says, nudging him playfully, trying to appear open and concerned.

“I got in trouble, stupid stuff you know, stealing and fighting, shit like that. But my parents were going through it, my dad’s always had some addiction stuff and my mom’s health was just starting to get really bad, and I wasn’t—I just didn’t want to be home, so I found other things to do. Ended up getting arrested for some minor, petty stuff but my parents just—I think they were just over it. They bought into some nightmare program where they come  _ kidnap _ your kid in the middle of the night, ship them off to fuck all—” Ben’s face is twisted, he’s not looking at Rey.

“You were kidnapped?”

“It’s supposed to build character,” Ben tells her. “They come get you in the middle of the night, beat you up, throw you in a van, tell you if you wanna get out you’re gonna do what they say. I thought at first it was because—my mom was in politics, you know, so I thought, some fucking terrorists had got me, but no, it was all parent approved. They took me out in to the mountains, there was four of us, plus the two  _ guides. _ It was just— _ bad _ .”

“How long?”

“Two years, more or less. It took me a while to get it, you know? I left, at first. Just fucked off. Almost died in the mountains, finally made it down to some little town. Stole a car,” he laughs, “ _ Borrowed _ , I guess. I knew it was only a matter of time. The cops found me within a few hours and it was right back to it.” Ben sighs, clenching his fists. “When I got out, dad was gone, somewhere on the west coast, and mom was—she was really sick. But I was angry, you know? Maybe I-- I wanted her to suffer, I don’t know. That’s so fucked up, I— I was just a kid, you know? And I was coming out of something really fucking bad and I didn’t—I don’t know.”

Rey has never seen Ben like this. It’s the same release of tightly coiled emotion that she often sees brimming, only this isn’t frustration or anger or desire—she doesn’t know what it is. She puts her hand over his, her fingers are greasy from the salve and they slide over his skin.

“I was just so mad at them,” Ben says. “I left for a couple years, didn’t want to talk to either of them, and then by the time I came back home, she was—she was  _ not _ good. I think maybe if I had gone back sooner, I don’t know. I don’t think I could have kept her alive, exactly, her immune system was just shot, but I think I could have made it better for her a lot sooner. I tried to make it up, you know, I really did. I moved back in and I cooked, and cleaned, and I made sure she made it to doctors, and took her medicine, and you know just—just wasn’t alone.”

“She was really lucky to have you, Ben, trust me. Just that—not being alone—that’s,” Rey chokes up a little bit. Ben looks up at her, and his eyes are brighter than she’s ever seen them. She wonders if he’s going to kiss her. He’s close enough to do it, she swears she can see his eyes dip down to her lips, but then he’s looking away.

“I don’t know how to take care of anyone but myself,” Rey tells him. She laughs softly. “I wouldn’t even know where to start. I’ve never had to do it, never had anyone to do it for me either.”

Rey worked very hard to keep the details of her past private while she worked at Niima Agency. She knows that Ben knows nothing of her childhood, which has always been a blessing. She can’t believe she’s thinking about ruining it right now. But he’s looking at her, so open and vulnerable, she just starts talking.

“I didn’t know my family, you know, like, at  _ all _ . I went into foster care young. Spent most of my life living under someone who doesn’t even deserve to be called  _ human _ ,” she stops, swallows hard. “I used to run away a lot, too. I was better at it than you were, though, I could stay hidden for weeks, sometimes months at a time.”

Ben’s hand turns under hers, his fingers spreading out. She keeps her hand in his as she speaks. 

“I was about nine, the first time, and I was just hungry. My foster dad used to keep the fridge padlocked, and I think I just wanted food, but I was small, and good at hiding, and so quick. It was easy to steal food, to find hiding places to sleep, to outrun anyone who was looking for me. I like it better on the streets.” 

He’s looking at her with new eyes, she can see him trying to rearrange the pieces of Rey he has saved to fit this picture. Biting her lip, Rey makes a choice. She gets up from the couch and crosses the room, reaching under her bed to pull out a big red duffel bag. She drags it back across the room to the couch, and hoists it into her lap once she’s back on the couch. She unzips it. 

Inside are hundreds, maybe even thousands of photographs. Some of them are polaroids, a lot were clearly shot on disposable cameras, dated more than a decade ago. Some have been printed off on regular paper, some printed on oversized photo paper. 

Ben reaches down and pulls out a small stack. She leans against him as he shuffles. 

“These are all places I’ve lived, or slept, or that were home in some way.” 

He flips through pictures of the basement squat room she had decorated with battery powered LED lights. The attic above the church where she had slept for months. The door to the crawl space, an empty cellar she had set up as a darkroom when she was eighteen. There were pictures of the shoreline at Coney Island, every bridge in the city, Finn on a rooftop, Rose in a bookstore. She lets him look, filling him in on small details, how much that one apartment she shared with Rose always smelled like hot dog water, or how the first pet she ever had was a feral rat she named King, in the hope that he may one day truly evolve into a New York subway rat king. Some of them are barely more than blurry snapshots, but some of them are really good, she can see that now. She always had an eye for composition, for color. She doesn’t look through these very often, even though they’re her most prized possession.

Ben listens, and he smiles in all the right places, and he groans at all of her gross details, and even though his eyes look sad, it isn’t pity she sees in them. For once, what she sees instead is understanding, and it gives her the strangest feeling that maybe, just maybe, this time she really isn’t alone. 

Ben keeps picking movies, and at some point they move from the couch to the bed. 

Maybe because she’s dreading it this time, but she wakes when she feels Ben getting up to leave. It’s almost dawn, later than he usually stays. She keeps her eyes closed and listens to him put dishes in the sink and then put his shoes on. He comes back over to her and she feels the bed dip a little as he leans over, pressing his mouth to her head in a soft, barely there kiss. 

She keeps her breathing steady and slow, her eyes closed tight, and a minute later she hears the door open and close, and is alone again. 

  
  
  


  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah! Friends! Thank you all so much for all your love!! This has been SO FUN. I am truly flattered at all of your author guesses. I will do an author reveal before I put out the epilogue, but I am gonna stay anon while I am still writing! If you search "little sicks" on twitter you'll see my throwaway account posting chapter updates, just in case you can't subscribe to this fic because there's no author attached.
> 
> Your comments have been such a boost of serotonin. It's really comforting to hear all of your experiences and to know I am not alone in this battle with invisible illness! Muchmuchmuch love to you all.


	5. fifth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh the angst really rolls in here, but it's the last hurdle and then we're on to tendernesssss.

_ The first time Ben comes over, Rey is  _ sure _ it’s going to be awkward. They work together, after all, and she has no idea if she’s going to be able to let someone degrade her tonight and still make office small talk in the morning. But the Ben who sits next to her on the train ride home, the Ben who follows her up and up and up her stairs until they’re inside, and then crowds her against the wall to kiss her-- well it’s just  _ not _ the same Ben as the one she works with. She forgets about buttoned-up Ben the minute his mouth is on hers.  _

_ They talk at length, before this, about how this is going to go. Ben makes her tell him all of her fantasies and set firm limits via text. Rey’s never had anyone else do that, and if you’d asked her about it before, she would have told you that straight up  _ bureaucracy _ is the least sexy thing in the world. But the way Ben does it, well, it’s  _ hot.

_ He makes her tell him every filthy thing she’s ever wanted to be called:  _ whore,  _ and _ slut,  _ and _ cunt _. He asks her if he can call her other things, too. Things like:  _ fleshlight _ , and  _ little hole,  _ and  _ fucktoy.  _ She tells him she wants to be someone else, to forget who she is, and he promises not to use her name, to only call her by what she is to him, to what he knows she is deep down.  _

_ By the time he actually comes over, she’s too keyed up to even remember what she told him, to remember anything except the safeword he marks her repeat,  _ olives _ , and how to breathe, albeit just barely.  _

_ Ben’s hands are everywhere, his voice is rough and his words are filthy, and then-- when he’s inside her, his cock is so, so big. He fucks the air from her lungs, pushes her head down into the pillow.  _

_ He never fucks her any other way, and he never calls her by her name when they’re naked. After he leaves, he sends her a text. _

_ Ben: Same time next week? _

_ Rey texts back. _

_ Rey: Yes. _

  
  


Rey does her MRI again. She takes valium on her own, beforehand, and since she knows what to expect now, she doesn’t totally lose her mind. 

Rose felt terrible about missing her calls, and Rey downplayed it as much as she could. But she still takes Rose off of her emergency contact list, and after they tell her that she cannot leave it blank, she puts Ben on it instead

The procedure goes about as well as it can, which is to say Rey manages not to cry or panic until it’s over, at which point she does a little bit of both as she’s getting dressed. She slips out into the cool air with overwhelming relief. 

The weather is warming, but summer is still far away, the air is still cold and crisp. She wants to walk home. A year ago, she wouldn’t even have to think about it, she would just take off on foot in the right direction, maybe hopping on a bus at some point or maybe finding some new side street full of book shops or bakeries or antiques. With a pained sigh, Rey checks her bank account. She’s been budgeting so carefully, but the idea of getting on a train right now when she can barely stand-- her legs feel like pins and needles and her head is swimming. 

She caves in and spends thirty dollars to get home in an uber, closing her eyes and letting the cold air whip against her face through the cracked window. She’s fighting down nausea, maybe from the meds or maybe from keeping every muscle to tight and still for so long, but byt the time she gets home and slowly, painfully  _ claws _ her way up four flights of stairs she barely makes it to the bathroom before she pukes. 

  
  


After, her whole body keeps cramping, and it’s all she can do to lay in bed and sip water. She sleeps for two days after that, only getting up to chug more water, eat a few slices of untoasted bread, and go back to bed. 

Her days begin to pass like that. She sleeps as much as she can to avoid being hungry, so she won’t have to spend so much money on food. She eats mostly bread and peanut butter, which makes her full but gives her no energy. She’s in too much pain when she is awake. It feels like her legs are on fire. She has pain in her head, and her teeth, and her organs. Everything hurts and every pain is a little different, and it seems like it’s fucking everywhere. 

It only takes a few days to get a call back about the MRI. She’s mentally preparing herself for the same  _ nothing is wrong _ conversation that she always has after tests, but this phone call goes differently. 

There is  _ something _ there, on her MRI, something that needs to be looked at closer. The doctor says  _ lesions _ not  _ tumors _ but when she asks if that’s better, his answer is noncommittal. 

“I can’t give you any real information until you come to see us, but we want to do a spinal tap. It could be nothing.”

There’s a weird ringing in her ears, but other than that she feels strangely calm. She gets off the phone and starts to google.  **BRAIN LESIONS MRI?** Over and over two words show up.  **MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS.**

She knows almost nothing about MS, but everything she reads makes her feel worse. All of the symptoms fit, and at certain point her eyes well up with tears too much to see her phone screen. 

_ It could be nothing, _ she tells herself, _ like the doctor said, it could be something else. It  _ could _ even be worse, like cancer, or it could be nothing or it could be-- it could be this. I don’t know.  _

Rey starts to pace around. She hasn’t allowed herself to feel cooped up, but she suddenly feels like a caged animal. Does this mean that she is just going to keep getting worse? That there is no real cure for her, and that she will just-- be like this? Feel like this, forever?

She’s crying a little but not hysterically-- it’s almost laughter, the way it’s coming out of her. It’s disbelief. She thought nothing could feel worse than not knowing but this feels worse, right now, at least. She can’t stand it, she can’t stand being here, being  _ her _ , and she has nowhere to go and no one else to be. 

Shaking, she starts to clean her apartment. It’s small, but it’s filthy from stacks of dishes and trash piling up. She bags it all up, she wipes it all down, and then she goes to her drunk drawer and pulls out the bottle of painkillers she’s had stashed away from an old ankle injury. She takes two. Then she texts Ben.

Rey: Will you come over and fuck me like before?

She puts the phone on silent and tosses it on her bed, then she gets into the shower. She’s pretty sure that Ben will come over for sex. He’s come over for a lot less, lately. Her pain is fading as the pills kick in, and she feels a slight buzz. Maybe it’s the medicine itself, or maybe it’s just the fact that she doesn’t feel any pain that’s making her feel so good. She shaves her legs and brushes her hair out. She rubs coconut oil over her skin, trying not to dwell on the places where her body seems to have forgotten how to heal. Scabs and scars still litter her arms. 

She puts on her robe and goes back to her bed. Ben has texted her back.

Ben: Tied up in meetings, I’ll come after? Around 6?

Rey doesn’t want to wait that long, it’s barely 2:00pm. Bouncing her leg nervously, she sends a reply. 

Rey: Yeah of course, just let me know. If it’s not a good time though, no hard feelings, no weirdness.

She’s giving him an out, not trying to backpedal. 

Ben: Trust me I’ll make it work.

Rey sighs and tries to think of how she can pass the time. She eats some bread and puts netflix on, setting her alarm for 5:00 in case she falls asleep. 

  
  
  
  


She falls asleep. 

When her alarm goes off a few hours later, she jolts up in confusion. It’s not quite dark out, but it’s grey and strange and it takes her a minute to figure out if it’s 5:00am or 5:00pm, before remembering that Ben is coming over--  _ to fuck her.  _

What the fuck was she thinking? Rey sits up, nauseous, and makes her way into the bathroom. She thinks maybe she’s going to be sick, but instead she just keeps feeling queasy, and like her skin is full of pins. It’s uncomfortable to even run her fingers over her flesh. Whimpering, she splashes water on her face and then rolls a joint. The weed helps with her nausea, pushing it down, but it doesn’t give her back any of the restless energy she had when she first texted Ben. 

She thinks about calling it off, but when she opens her phone she has a few messages from him.

Ben: I can’t wait to fuck you, you have no idea

Ben: I’ve missed the way you taste

Ben: I need to cum in you so badly

She’s not going to take this away from him, he’s done _so_ much for her. She can do this, she _wants_ to do this. Well, she _wants_ _to want to_. She doesn’t actually want to, or well, she doesn’t know. Fuck. 

She rummages through her dresser for a black satin nightie and slips it on. It’s smooth and cool and doesn’t irritate her skin, which is a small blessing. She makes herself put on the littlest bit of lipstick, so that Ben can see it smeared, and mascara so she looks more awake. She’s still a little too pale, and her face is puffy. She’s been bloated pretty much non stop, but there’s nothing she can do about that now. She thinks about calling it off once more. 

She’s pretty sure she will never see Ben again if she pulls some blue balls shit like that, though. She knows how much guys hate that sort of thing, when girls are just teases. 

So Rey takes slow, steady breaths. She drinks a little water, doesn’t move around too much, tries first just stay calm, and then to maybe be excited.

She’s going to see Ben, and touch him, and he’s going to fuck her again, and even if it’s not as great for her as it once was, it is something, and he will hold her after. 

  
  
  


Ben shows up a few minutes after 6:00, with two bags of groceries and a sharp, feral look in his eyes. His eyes track over Rey and she lets herself be looked at, she feels prettier than she has in months, just by virtue of giving a shit. 

Ben drops the bags on the counter and crowds around Rey, his hands touching her hips, stroking the fabric. 

“You look stunning,” he tells her, “did you put this on just for me?”

“Yes,” she says, breathless. He’s still dressed from work, and Rey is split in two by her desire for Ben to touch her and desire to just go back to sleep until this dizziness disappears. But the more he looks at her, the more his hands move over her, the more the part of her that wants him wins out. She closes her eyes and Ben leans down to mouth at her neck. She can feel him sucking, hard, and knows he’s going to leave a mark-- something he  _ never _ would have done while she was still going into the office. She shivers and he lifts her up, taking her to the bed. He lays her down on her stomach and she buries her head in her pillow as he licks and sucks and kisses the exposed skin on her neck and back. 

“Ben,” she whines, squirming under him. He puts a hand on her back, keeping her flat on the bed. 

“Don’t move,” he tells her, “I like when my fucktoys move. Be a good little dolly for me, kay?”

Rey goes limp, lets Ben lift her nightie and then her hips. He lines up and starts to slide into her like he always has, in one clean sweep. 

It doesn’t quite work, she’s not as wet as she normally is, she’s still too in her own head, still too aware of the way her hip is hurting, how the blood is pounding in her ears from the way her head is lowered, how her arms itch. 

Ben’s hips stutter and then pause, but he doesn’t say anything, he just brings his hand down and starts to rub her, biting on her ear as he presses her clit. It works, and after a minute or two of rocking against her gently he gets all the way in. 

“Okay?” he asks, breathless.

“Yeah, it’s good,” Rey says, and it’s fine, really it’s fine. She just wants him to keep going, she wants him to finish, she wants to get to the part where he holds her. 

“Are you sure?” Ben asks, he can tell something is wrong, of course he can, she’s not fucking him right. “You know you have a safe--”

“A safeword, yeah I know, I’m not using it. Ben  _ please _ , just fuck me hard.”

“Okay,” he says, touching her head and shushing her. “Stay still then, yeah? You know why you’re here. You know what you’re good for. Made to milk my cock, that’s it. Just a little cocktoy, so fucking tight,  _ fuck _ .”

Ben starts to pound into her. Rey grips the sheets with her fists and grunts, he’s so big and she’s feeling it in such an acute way. She’s never done this while not being in headspace and it feels different. She can’t let go, she can’t get out of her head, she’s stuck here and she feels-- bad. 

She tries to squeeze her cunt as tight as she can, she wants Ben to come, and quickly, because every time he’s pushing into her she’s getting more and more nauseous. His hands on her arms make her flinch, and when she cries out again it’s in discomfort, and he stops, tipping her head back. 

Her eyes are squeezed tight, she’s trying not to cry. 

“Rey,” he says, “We don’t have to do this.”

“Please I just-- just finish okay? I want you to-- to finish.”

Ben pulls out of her, shaking his head. 

“No, no I can’t, Rey, not when you’re clearly not enjoying what I’m doing.”

“I am, it’s fine-- I will. I’m just out of practice, okay, I just--” Rey closes her eyes, and when she opens them her vision is  _ so _ slow to follow, swimming back in over too many seconds. She feels hot, and then cold and then hot, and she barely has time to push Ben away and rush into the bathroom before she’s puking. 

It’s probably from the pills, she probably didn’t eat enough, or have enough water, or she just kept her body clenched too tight for too long.

She shouldn’t have texted him, it was such a moment of weakness. It’s clear she  _ cannot _ handle any kind of intimacy at all. She knows Ben can probably hear her, and that he’s going to think she’s sick, and weak, and stupid. She does everything she can not to cry, and waits an extra few minutes before brushing her teeth and going back out into her room. 

“I’m sorry, this was a mistake. You should go.”

“Go? Rey no, are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

“No, you didn’t hurt me,” she laughs humorlessly, “I am just not capable of doing  _ anything _ I used to do, apparently, including this. I should have known better, I just-- I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.”

“You could have told me you weren’t feeling well, we could have just watched TV or something--”

“I never feel well!” Rey doesn’t mean to scream the words, but she does. She’s shaking, and she’s devastated and angry and she just lost the last thing she really wanted to keep. She can’t give Ben anything and all he does is wait around for her to be able to give him anything and it’s a stupid, viscious cycle. “This isn’t just an off day, I feel like shit  _ all the time _ , Ben, that’s the point! I don’t know why you’re still hanging around me, it’s obvious that I can’t do anything that you want me to, I have nothing to offer you at this point, I can’t even fuck you.”

“Rey,” Ben says calmly, “I do not give a shit about fucking you right now, all I want is to make sure that you’re okay.”

“Right now!” Rey screams, and then tears are falling. Of course he can say that  _ right now _ but he’s not getting what she means. “Right now is all the time, Ben. I am  _ not  _ going to get better, okay?” Her voice is getting higher, her face redder. 

“What are you not telling me, Rey? What did your doctor say?” Ben looks wild, and angry, and very on edge but Rey is barely seeing it through her own panic and rage.

“That this is it!  _ This is me. _ I am the sick girl, okay, that’s who I get to be. And that means I cannot fuck you, not now, not ever, I can’t-- I cannot be-- whoever the fuck I used to be when that felt good.” Rey is sobbing now, and she knows that she looks insane. She knows this reaction is disproportionate to whatever just happened, but it’s not about that. It’s not about  _ anything _ . It’s about  _ everything _ . She wants Ben to leave. “It  _ didn’t _ feel good, Ben. It won’t ever feel good. I don’t want to fuck you anymore, okay? You can stop hanging around here waiting for it to happen like some sick little puppy dog.”

Ben stands up fast. He never even undressed, just took his pants off, but he’s pulling them on now, shaking his head. 

“I don’t know what you want from me,” he says, shaking his head and pulling his work jacket back on. “Because I am try--”

“Nothing, I want literally  _ nothing _ from you. I thought I was making that clear.”

Ben runs his hand over his mouth, turning on the spot. She can tell he’s angry now. He’s shaking a little, too. 

“What did the doctor say, Rey,” Ben asks again. 

“Nothing, okay? I’m not dying, it’s not some tragic cancer. This is just my life now, Ben, and there is no room for you in it anymore.”

Ben’s lips are pressed tightly together, but his jaw is working, and his eyes are bright. 

“Okay,” he says after a minute. “If that’s what you want, Rey, then that’s what it is. Have fun being sick and alone.

Rey doesn’t say anything as Ben walks to the door, opens it, and then lets it slam shut behind him. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for sticking with this story! If you search "little sicks" on twitter you can find my ANONBB account where I am just posting updates for this fic. I won't use that account after I do an AUTHOR REVEAL at the end of the next chapter. Last chance to get your guesses in! #whoislittlesicks !! lmaooo no fr it's been a very safe way to write a very personal story, so thanks for giving me that space. I'm excited to finally put my name on this. 
> 
> Thanks for all the love friends, I am chronically ill, disabled, and doin it ALONE so it warms my heart to hear from all of you who do the same or who have your own Ben-type person. Stay strong spoonies.


	6. sixth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg why am i so nervous!!! hi it's me!! ah!
> 
> i took a long break from writing for this fandom while i was going through the worst of my own illness this year, and adjusting to a completely new level of disability than i had ever experienced before. i didn’t feel safe here for a long time for a handful of reasons, all of which circle back to my own feelings of not having control over my life, and my voice. 
> 
> But writing this fic on anon opened up a lot of wonderful old feelings about fandom, and i realized that i have really missed writing these two and being connected to all of you. thanks so much for sticking with this story, here is the tenderness i promised!

The door slams and Rey falls to the floor, putting her hand over her mouth. She wants to scream, she wants to punch, she wants to go to sleep and wake up in her old body, in her old life, or not wake up at all. 

Angrily, she grabs a plate and hurls it at the ground, screaming. The glass shatters on the floor but she walks around it to grab another and smashes it as well. It feels so good to break something after trying so hard to keep everything from breaking. 

Part of her knew this was coming, it was always going to end like this. There is no way for her to be what Ben wants, and there is no way to have any kind of  _ normal _ dating experience when her entire life is falling apart. She isn’t even sure how she’s going to keep a roof over her head, at this rate she will have to leave the city, head somewhere cheaper and safer but further away from any sort of life she’s built here which is-- what, exactly? What does she have to show for it? Shouldn’t she have more people she can count on than… well, none, apparently. 

Why is she so unlovable? Why is she cursed?

Sobbing, Rey falls onto the floor and lets herself mourn. She just lost the last thing she was fighting to keep, everything else will follow soon. Hopelessness is a black hole, and she’s been caught on the edge of it for months now, not even realizing that she couldn’t pull away even if she wanted to. 

She cries loud and ugly tears for a while, until she feels like her body is a cage and her heart is a newly caught bird, terrified. She has to get out of this house, even for a little bit.

Stumbling, she pulls on shoes and a jacket, wiping snot on her sleeve. She needs air, she needs to not be here right now. She needs--- she needs--

She knows she’s going to look nuts, crying her eyes out walking down the street, but the good thing about New York City is someone always looks crazier, someone else is always crying harder. People are experts in pretending not to notice. 

She opens her door and freezes. There’s a figure slumped on her staircase, a massive figure, with his head in hands. 

_ Ben. _

She freezes as he looks up at her. She knows he must have heard her smashing plates, screaming to herself. Her already rosy cheeks go bright red. But then she looks a little closer and she can see that his cheeks are flush too, and his eyes are bright. Has he been crying? Ben Solo?  _ Crying _ ?

“You’re still here.”

“Yeah,” his voice is so, so rough. “I was-- I  _ am _ gonna go, I was just worried. I heard you and I just-- I wanted to make sure that you-- that  _ I  _ didn’t-- that I didn’t hurt you too badly.” His voice cracks a little at the end, and he clears his throat. 

Rey feels so much of the fight go out of her. 

“Ben,” she moves toward him a little. “You did  _ not _ hurt me. You did exactly as I asked you to do-- exactly the thing that would have, at one point in my life, been perfect. But it’s just-- not anymore. It really is _ me, not you _ . I’m the broken one, I’m the sick one.”

“We didn’t have to do  _ that _ ,” Ben says, and he looks hurt or angry or sad or all of them at once, flashing across his sharp features as a muscle in his cheek twitches. Rey sits down next to him on the steps, partly because she is getting dizzy now from standing, and partly because she wants to be closer to Ben.

“I wanted to-- to give you something back. For everything that you do for me.”

“You don’t  _ owe me sex, _ Rey, I--” Ben looks mildly horrified, and he is crying a little. Silently, but it’s happening. He makes no move to hide it, or to wipe his tears away. 

“I wanted to,” she says, and her voice comes out raspy, quieter than she meant. She clears her throat and tries again. “I wanted so badly to just-- feel connected to you, to give you a reason to stay that wasn’t putting on ointment or feeding me.” Rey swallows hard. She doesn’t want to do this, she doesn’t want to be honest, or vulnerable, or whatever else this is. But Ben is just watching her, his bright brown eyes still wet, and so she keeps going. 

“I don’t feel like this is fair, to you, I mean, because I get you doing all of these things for me and I can’t-- can’t give you what I know you really want.”

“What, exactly, do you think I  _ really _ want, Rey?”

Rey rolls her eyes, feeling her defenses creep back in. The nerve of this man to flay her open with his words like this. To make her say it.

“Ben, you and I had a really good thing going, you know? We were into all the same shit, and I am just-- not into it now. I already feel worthless, and stupid, and broken all the fucking time I can’t-- and I don’t.” She sighs hard, losing her words. It’s hard to finish sentences sometimes, and she’s not making sense. She feels her eyes sting and tries again. “Your tinder profile, I know exactly what it is you’re looking for and what I can and can’t give you at this point, and I know you’ve been thinking that maybe I’ll get better and things can go back to-- to  _ that  _ and so I tried but-- I can’t do it.”

Ben waits for her to fully lose steam before he speaks. When he does, his voice is much shakier, and his eyes are sharper.

“Rey, my tinder profile is like my fucking porn history, it’s not  _ who I am _ or  _ what I need. _ I am more than just-- I thought that we were maybe--” he slumps a little, leaning on the wall. “I like you, I thought you liked me too, not just for-- for that stuff, or the errands and things I thought, you know, that if I was helpful and stuff, you’d let me hang around more and see I was-- I wasn’t just--  _ that _ .”

Rey feels the pit drop out of her stomach. She feels like a self absorbed asshole. She feels absolutely incapable of normal human relationships. She feels suddenly desperate to prove to Ben that  _ that’s not what she meant-- _ but is it?

“ _ Oh _ ,” she breaths the word out. “Oh, Ben, no I-- I just-- I didn’t think you’d want  _ me _ , especially as I just became--  _ less _ .”

“Less?” Ben shakes his head, “Rey, if the last six months have shown me anything, it’s that you’re so much  _ more.”  _ Rey closes her eyes because she’s going to cry again, she’s too close to the last cry, it hasn’t fully stopped yet. She feels herself shake. “You’re not  _ less _ of anything, not to me.”

“But what if I can’t-- what if I can’t do those things you like?” The words are sobbed out, because the dam is breaking. 

“There are a lot of things I like,” Ben tells her. “I bet there are a lot of things you like too.”

Rey presses her hands to her eyes. She can’t look at him while she says this. 

“I’m scared. I’m scared that if I start needing you, then losing you will really break me. I don’t want to need something else that could be taken away from me in an instant.”

She feels hands over hers, pulling them away from her face. Ben holds her hands in his and waits until she looks up at him.

“I have absolutely no doubt that you can do this by yourself, Rey. I just don’t want you to have to.”

Rey leans into Ben, sobbing, and he puts his arms around her. He lets her cry like that for a little bit, and then they stand and go back into her apartment. She forgot about the mess, and she feels shame as Ben looks down and surveys the damage. 

“Why don’t you go wash your face, I’ll clean this up.”

Rey doesn’t fight, she kicks off her shoes and jacket and goes to the bathroom, rinsing snot and tears from her face. Then she sits in bed and waits for Ben to join her.

“Are you okay?” he asks her. 

“I’m tired,” she admits, which means so much more than  _ I’m sleepy, _ these days. It means  _ I hurt.  _ So they lay down together and she puts her head on his chest. For a minute, she tries to fight falling asleep like she always does, wanting just an extra moment here like this-- but then she realizes that Ben will still be here when she wakes up again, this time, and she closes her eyes and falls asleep within minutes, listening to the slow steady beat of his heart. 

  
  
  


When Rey wakes up it’s fully dark outside. Ben isn’t in bed with her, but her little apartment is too small for her to think he’s gone, she can hear him in the kitchen, and she can smell something garlicky cooking. She sits up and reaches for her phone. She slept for almost three hours, jesus. 

She pads off to the bathroom to pee and looks at herself in the mirror. Her eyes are puffy, so is her face, she splashes more cool water on it and then goes into the kitchen.

“This smells good,” she says, looking over at what Ben is making.

“Just pasta and sauce,” he says. She can see the can of tomatoes on the counter, and onion, some garlic, some herbs. 

“Perfect.” 

It’s a little,  _ tiny _ bit awkward as Ben finishes cooking and then brings bowls over to the couch. They’re quiet for a bit, but Rey is feeling happier than she has in a long time, and after a few minutes of sneaking little glances over at Ben she says, “So uh-- something you said earlier...”

Ben finishes chewing, wiping his mouth on a paper towel before speaking. 

“Oh? And what’s that.”

“That you like me.”

He tucks his chin toward his chest as a smile cracks on his face. He looks a little bashful. It makes something inside of her body soar.

“Yeah,” he says, looking back up at her. “What about it?”

“I like you too.”

Ben snuffs out a laugh, shaking his head.

“This is the most middle school conversation I’ve had since actually being in middle school,” he tells her, but he looks pleased as shit. 

“I wrote a note around here somewhere, had the little  _ yes _ and  _ no _ boxes for you to check off but I lost it, so it’s good you brought it up, actually.”

Ben shakes his head again, still smiling, he looks away-- like he’s looking for the right thing to say, but when he looks back at Rey he doesn’t speak, he just kisses her. 

She isn’t expecting it, and the warmth she feels flood her body is a surprise. 

It’s not like Ben has never kissed her, he has-- but it’s always tucked deep into fucking, lost in a moment of passion, pulling her back by her hair so he can find her mouth and suck on her tongue with a moan. 

They’ve never  _ just _ kissed. 

She can taste the hint of garlic on his mouth, it tastes like hers, but better somehow. She’s lost in it until she hears their bowls clink, and realizes they’ve moved toward each other, food forgotten. Ben pulls away from her and takes their bowls, still mostly full, and puts them on the table. Then he turns back to her and he kisses her again, tugging her closer, closer, until she’s in his lap and he can put his hands all over her. The more she kisses him, the more he just tastes like  _ Ben _ and the more she feels heat rise inside of her body. 

“Ben I--” she pulls back, and he chases her mouth for one more kiss before he opens his eyes to show her he’s listening. “I don’t know how to do this-- I want to make you feel good and I’m scared  _ I _ won’t feel good and I just-- I don’t-- I  _ don’t _ want to be boring, or bad at this-- and I  _ don’t _ want to lose what we had before because that was-- that was important to me, too, and I just-- keep losing things.”

That same feeling of wanting and not wanting battles up inside of her, overwhelming her again. 

“You want to feel special, still, right? Wanna still feel like you were made just for me?”

Rey nods, nervously. 

“Rey, what I like about this, about  _ us _ , is not the things I say to you, or the position I fuck you in. What I like is knowing that I’m giving you something you need, something  _ secret _ , something just for us. It’s okay if your needs change, I want to be able to give you what you need, even if it’s a little different.”

Rey isn’t sure where this is going but she nods again, feeling too small to even speak.

“And I think what you need right now is just-- to be taken care of.”

Disappointment blooms in her chest. She doesn’t want to have him be her nurse. 

“No, Ben I feel fine right now. I want to-- I want to do  _ this,  _ I want to be with you,” she shifts her hips to make a point, pressing into his lap, searching--

Ben’s hands find her hips, holding her still.

“Who said we can’t do both?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Ben says, loosening his grip on her hips so she can resume her gentle rocking. “That right now, what I think you need is someone to take care of you. Maybe it’s okay to feel a little  _ helpless _ , to be  _ needy _ , when-- well, when you have me here.”

Rey blushes. She’s never done any kind of  _ little _ play, but she’s also never felt the need to be cared for. She’s always been proud of how strong she is, how much she doesn’t need anyone for anything-- but maybe, well maybe it would be nice to have a break from  _ that  _ Rey, for a change. The Rey who has to fight so hard all the time to keep her head up, to prove that she’s in control. Maybe  _ that _ Rey, this new Rey, wouldn’t mind being little, being taken care of, having someone like Ben to protect her, and tell her what’s best, and-- and--- 

“Yes,” she says, breathless. She is terrified and thrilled. She has worked very hard not to let Ben see her be vulnerable that deliberating doing it, playing it up, even, feels like getting naked in a new, even deeper way. 

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” She does. 

“You have your safeword, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you know the safeword rule.”

“Yes.”

“Say it.”

“I safeword when I stop having fun not when I start to hurt.”

Ben looks pleased, his eyes are harder than she’s seen them in months. She can feel the way his entire demeanor shifts when he takes control of her. He sits up and lifts her, makes her turn around and sit facing the other way as he says, “Why don’t we watch some TV?”

Rey is both confused and enthralled. Her anticipation is ramping up, and she doesn’t have any real idea where this is going. But she trusts Ben. She does. 

Ben puts on cartoons, We Bear Bears, one of Rey’s favorites, and then settles into the couch, pulling her closer. Ben’s hands rub her thighs, over her leggings, and he leans into her neck as he whispers. 

“You had a big day, huh? It’s hard for such a little girl to be up so late after so much excitement, but at least you had a nice nap.” 

It’s true, and so she nods. She’s still gently rocking against Ben but she can’t feel if he’s hard and it’s making her anxious because she’s already so, so wet. 

“Now you can just relax with Daddy, we can watch some cartoons before bed, and maybe we can do special snuggles if you’re not too sleepy.”

He’s going to make her wait, and that alone has her trembling a little. She whines gently as she grinds down, but the way he’s sitting won’t give her the friction she needs. She doesn’t really know what to say, or how to play this, she’s just running on instinct now, letting herself slip away into what is at least a familiar headspace. Ben is in charge.  _ Daddy _ is in charge. 

He makes her watch a whole episode while she finishes her dinner. He doesn’t eat, just gently kisses her neck and says things like,  _ you did so well today, _ and,  _ I’m so proud of my strong little girl.  _ He whispers praise to her and she had no idea, how could she have ever known?

It feels just as good as being called worthless-- but better, now, because it fills a hole she didn’t even realize was aching. 

Rey turns her head behind her to kiss Ben, but he pulls away, just out of reach. 

“Oh, someone is eager, huh?”

“Ben--”

“Not Ben,” he corrects her, but she isn’t sure she can say it-- her tongue trips over it and she whines. “If there’s something you need, Princess, use your big girl words and ask.”

“ _ Daddy _ ,” she says, “please.”

She feels Ben shiver a little under her, and she realizes that he really does like this, that he’s just as eager as she is. That he knows what he’s doing, and what she needs. He’s always known what she needs, and that maybe-- just maybe-- this isn’t just for her. 

“Please, I-- I need you,” she adds.

“Mmm,” Ben presses kisses into her neck. Rey can’t handle it, she stands up and tries to tug him up too, but he isn’t moving. He’s smirking, spread out on his couch with his legs wide, and when he tugs her back down, he wins. 

She comes to rest on one of his massive thighs, facing him. 

“You’re so squirmy today, sweetheart, do you need to use Daddy’s leg to feel better?”

It’s a role reversal, and yet it isn’t. She’s used to being the toy, the object, but Ben is offering himself for her to use while still maintaining all of the control. Rey starts to rock against him and the relief is immediate and sharp, she whimpers, pushing up further into Ben. He hisses through his teeth and then reaches between them, into his pants, and readjusts himself.  _ Now _ she can feel him, and it makes both of them lose their breath as she pushes herself up to grind down against his length, now pressed against his thigh. 

She bites softly at his lips and feels the way his shoulders tense when she notches her cloth covered cunt over the head of his cock. 

“I want you to fuck me,” she says, breathless. 

Ben moans into her mouth. “I don’t know,” he says, as if he’s really not going to do it. “It’s so late,  _ way _ past your bedtime, little one, and I know how cranky you get when you’re overtired.”

“No,” Rey whines, pressing down harder. “No please daddy, I need it-- I--” Rey thinks back to what he said before. “I had a nap already, so I won’t be too sleepy. I promise.”

“How about we make a deal,” Ben says the words right against her ear. “If you can be a good girl and cum on Daddy’s leg before the next episode ends, I’ll fuck you before bedtime.”

Rey is dizzy with his words, the way he feels so big beneath her and around her, the way she’s spent the last few months worried he would want to fuck her and now she’s desperately worried he will make her wait. 

He puts his hands on her hips and they hold her so tightly, helping her get leverage as she rubs herself off. She used to get off like this a lot as a teenager, and it’s not so forigen to her body. Her nails dig into Ben’s shoulders and he whispers, “That’s a good girl, cum for me Rey,” and she does, after only a few minutes. It’s sharp and sweet and her stomach twitches, muscles jumping as she shakes a little in his arms. 

He kisses her mouth, and she’s a little slow to return the kiss, but then he’s lifting her up and bringing her over to bed. He tosses her gently onto the mattress and reaches down to undo his pants, kicking them off. He keeps his sweater on, as he leans over her, kissing her, and tugs at her pants too. She lets him peel her leggings off, she has no underwear on at all. 

Ben is eager, she’s seen him like this before, a sort of frantic focus akin to that of an athlete or chess player. He slides down between her legs and puts his mouth on her. She usually get’s nervous when people do this, but she’s too relaxed from her first orgasm and too thankful for Ben’s attention and too far into headspace to do anything except make little moaning sounds as he fucks her with his tongue and sucks on her clit. 

She’s begging for him to fuck her by the time he pulls back. She lifts onto her elbows to watch him as he fists himself. His dick is red and swollen, shiny at the tip where he’s leaking for her. He looks even bigger when he lets go and leans over her. He usually fucks her from behind, and she’s never really noticed how big he is but he leans down to kiss her and his cock rests against her belly and-- christ, how does that thing even fit in her?

“Tell me what you want,” he says against her lips. Rey doesn’t hesitate to answer. 

“I want you to fuck me daddy, please, I need it.”

“Such a sweet little girl, with such a tight little hole she needs stuffed.” He presses himself right to her opening and looks down into her face. “Such a delicate little thing, huh? Just a soft,” he pushes in a little, “warm,” a little more, “tight little girl for Daddy.”

He slides all the way in and it’s perfect, breathtaking, better than it’s ever been because he’s looking at her, and touching her face, and she can see how much he loves this because his eyes are so dark, the brown nearly swallowed whole by the black. 

Then he starts to move. 

He normally fucks her hard, slamming himself into her again, and again, but not tonight. Tonight he fucks her slowly, still getting as deep as he can but dragging out painfully slowly before pushing back in and it’s making her grunt out and whine. 

“That’s it, I know you can do it, I know Daddy’s big, but you’re such a good girl, you were made for this. Perfect, all mine.”

“All yours,” she echos, and Ben speeds up his hips. 

“Yeah. You-- you need me, right?” He asks, voice rough.

There’s an unexpected vulnerability in the question, a reminder that this isn’t just about her-- but about Ben too, and his own feelings of worth. 

“I need you,” she tells him, and it’s not just talk, it’s Rey telling Ben. “I need you, please-- please don’t leave me, please I need-- I need you.”

“I’m gonna cum,” he warns her, moving his hand between them to press her clit in tight little circles.

“I want you to cum in me, please, make me whole Daddy, I need you-- I need you so badly Ben, Ben please, I need--”

Ben cries out, cursing as he holds his body still. Rey looks up into his face and watches the look of wonder break over him as he cums. She follows him, spurred on by the twitching of his body and his rough thumb on her clit. 

He collapses over her and pants into her mouth, half kissing, half just breathing. She wants to feel crushed under him, wants to live there in the small space he has given her to curl up against him. 

A gift. All of it. 

“Thank you,” she whispers, and she realizes she’s crying. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Ben kisses her, and kisses her, and kisses her. Then he tells her how good she did, and how much he needs her too, and how strong he really thinks she is, which is to say,  _ very. _

This time, when Rey wakes up in the morning, Ben is right there with her. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a lot of Rey’s journey here is my journey, or just parts of it, painted differently and displayed. if you’re familiar with my work, you’ll note that the last reylo fic i wrote before disappearing was another disability fic, so there’s been a real theme of working my shit out on ao3 😂 
> 
> if i'm being VULNERABLE AND HONEST... part of the reason i wanted to come off anon here is because i am trying to raise funds to get life saving treatment in Ohio, and i want to ask that if this story spoke to you at all, please read my own story about my health journey and share it if you can. you can find me on twitter @violethoure666 or go directly to my gofundme
> 
> gofundme.com/f/ohio-treatment-fund 
> 
> thanks again for all the love friends. i will see you soon for the epilogue!


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